We left Bend and headed south to Crescent, OR, basically a place we could launch to see Crater Lake. We went there in 2005 and all the roads were closed due to snow, so we only got a glimpse of the lake. On the way we were looking for someplace to have lunch and stumbled across the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. We poked our nose in and found a place to park and decided to take advantage of being there and went off for a 1 mile loop hike, Trail of the Molten Land. It was very interesting and had nice views regardless of the clouds and threatening rain. But had quite the time negotiating our departure, man was it tight!!!!!
 |
| Snow covered mountains in the distance |
 |
Great Balls of Lava!
Actually they are called snowballs of lava. Pieces would
break off the main flow and tumble downhill similar to a snowball
These are about 15' in diameter! |
The monument is quite large and the southern end was near where we were camped so we headed over the next day. There are two lakes, Paulina and East, very pretty surrounded by lava, cinders, and even obsidian. We took a short hike, I should say climb into the Big Obsidian Flow.
 |
| Looking over East Lake, still threatening rain |
 |
| Our climb into the obsidian flow |
 |
| Pretty amazing scenery |
 |
| We even found a waterfall |
 |
| Having a great time! |
 |
| The path through the flow |
 |
The native americans would come up to 200 miles once a year
to harvest obsidian for their tools, knives, arrowheads, etc |
 |
Fascinating, obsidian will fracture down to one atom thick,
making an obsidian knife up to 500 times as sharp as a steel blade!
Under magnification the obsidian in that thickness is smooth while a steel blade
looks like a saw edge.
The following day we went to Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the US at 1949'. It is quite a sight, I mentioned the first time we went the roads were all closed for snow, well this time at the very end of June, half of the rim road was still closed for snow! |
We are now in process of rejoining our original itinerary in Colorado, but we had a few stops to make along the way. We celebrated Jan's birthday with scallops for dinner, per her request. Yummy, by the way.
Then we stopped in Boise to visit Jan's cousin Kris, and Sandy and see their new house.
 |
After a great dinner out
Thanks guys! |
We even got to wash our filthy motorhome and truck, I think we finally have all the ATF off:-) Ran a few errands in the big city, then off to Picabo, ID to try to fish the famous Silver Creek. I'll leave you with our first sunset in Picabo reflecting off our window.
 |
| More to come.... |
No comments:
Post a Comment